A HOAXER who called out three lifeboats - one in horrendous conditions - off the North Wales coast was spared jail yesterday.

Disabled David Garforth was given a community rehabilitation order for two years after the judge was told he had a history of mental illness.

Judge Phillip Richards told the 58-year-old: "Behaviour of this sort is highly irresponsible causing danger to life and a great deal of expense."

He said such offenders would normally go straight to prison but he took into account Garforth's guilty plea and show of remorse.

He also said, despite Garforth's psychiatric history, he had remained out of trouble for 31 years apart from a couple of minor shoplifting offences.

Judge Richards told Mold Crown Court he was mindful of Garforth's physical condition and the difficulties he faced.

"Your actions were horrendously irresponsible as you acknowledge in your letter to the Llandudno Lifeboat Crew," the judge said..

"If I thought that there was a substantial risk that you would repeat this behaviour in the future, you would be going to prison. It would be the only way of preventing such further behaviour by you. If you do repeat this behaviour, to prison you will go."

Garforth, who is a former patient at Ashworth high security hospital on Merseyside, admitted three charges of making hoax calls that sent lifeboats to sea and one of using wireless telegraphy equipment without a licence.

Martin Jenkins, prosecuting for Ofcom, said the hoaxes happened last December, and involved callouts of the Llandudno main and inshore lifeboats and Rhyl's main lifeboat.

The first message to Holyhead coast-guards from a radio operator, on December 7, said the caller was aboard the vessel Santa Monica, which was drifting towards rocks near Llandudno.

On December 18, he said he was aboard the fishing vessel Brecon, off Prestatyn, with an injured crew member.

The most serious hoax was on the night of December 20 in a Force Seven gale saying a fishing boat called Caprice had lost all power, with five on board.

The caller gave a precise set of coordinates close to the Conwy fairway, which would be visible from Garforth's home.

Llandudno lifeboat launched at 10.13pm and was at sea until 12.32am on her fruitless mission.

Garforth, of The Esplanade, Penmaenmawr, was traced after he made a call to coastguards in January for a weather report. When his home was searched a VHF marine transmitter was found, together with an Admiralty chart with the precise co-ordinates used on December 20 - with a line drawn from the sea to his house.

Garforth did not have a licence and a certificate of competence required by law to use such a transmitter. Also found was a global positioning satellite receiver, with the December 20 details on the co-ordinates.

On January 21, Garforth phoned Holyhead coastguards and "apologised for the lives that could have been lost".

Mr Jenkins said: "It goes without saying that when on hoax calls, the crews cannot respond to genuine emergencies.

"The working lives of the volunteer crews are disrupted and in bad weather there is a clear and evident risk to life."

He said the costs in the case were £3,350 but said that it cost £1,200 to launch an inshore rescue boat and £6,000 to launch a fully crewed lifeboat. An application to confiscate the radio equipment was granted.

Garforth, in interview, denied he was responsible for the calls even when his voice was played back to him, and when the precise co-ordinates used in the hoax calls were found on the maps at his home.

But he then sent a letter of apology to the Llandudno Lifeboat Station and also telephoned Holyhead Coast Guard to apologise and express his remorse.

John Philpotts, defending, said his client appreciated the seriousness of what he had done.

An Ofcom spokesman said: "By sending out false distress signals, Mr Gar-forth endangered the lives of the brave RNLI volunteers who were sent out in appalling conditions to answer his calls."